Vaccination

According to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, only two countries still have circulation of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Investigators found patients on dialysis who received a high-dose influenza vaccination showed no additional effectiveness in reducing all-cause mortality or influenza outcomes compared to those who had a standard-dose vaccination.

EULAR recommendations now state that vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella, as well as herpes zoster, may be considered with caution in adult patients with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases at risk, according to a 2019 update published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

CDC data showed that most of the estimated 34,800 cancers yearly attributed to HPV annually between 2012 and 2016 could have been prevented if the patient had received the 9-valent HPV vaccine.

HPV vaccine uptake increased slightly among adolescents from 2017 to 2018 in the United States, driven by an increase in uptake among boys, according to new vaccine coverage estimates. Researchers found that HPV vaccination was more likely among teenagers whose parents reported receiving a recommendation from their provider.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommended that HPV and pneumococcal vaccination in older patients be “based on shared clinical decision-making” — that is, doctors and patients should decide whether it is appropriate.

The prevalence of exposure to hepatitis B among veterans was highest among those with traditional risk factors and independently related to military combat or being wounded in combat, according to study results.

The United Kingdom has lost the measles elimination status it achieved in 2017, health officials announced.

Herd immunity generated by the introduction of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in the United States — first in 2010 for children, then in 2012 for immunocompromised adults, in series with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine — has driven down the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease, or IPD, in adults with and without underlying medical conditions, researchers reported.

In Denmark, elderly ICU survivors who received an influenza vaccine had an 8% decreased risk for death and a 16% reduced risk for hospitalization for stroke in the year after discharge compared with patients who were not vaccinated, according to findings from a population-based cohort study published in Intensive Care Medicine.